First bit in Ankara, Turkey
Posted on September 15, 2023 • 6 minutes • 1221 words
Waking up in our 4-month temporary home was a grand feeling. We ate yogurt, museli and fruit and the kids and I lounged as we thought about what we were going to do for the day. Dan had to get papers in for his class that were due that day and had to be reviewed by the dean, so he was up and out in the morning to return the car (the only time he drove in the last 2 months!). Onur picked him up and when he did, he delivered a couple bags of toys they no longer needed. Kids and I did some school and when we got hungry, headed to a café on campus for lunch.
Beyond thrilled to see this sign walking on campus!
The first two weeks in Turkey, we had zero rush and zero agenda apart from apartment stuff. Our apartment had exactly what 5 people would need to live there, no more. 5 plates, 5 teeny teacups, 5 spoons, you get the picture. It was lacking in some basic kitchen stuff as we soon figured out as we were flipping French Toast with a fork. No broom, only 1 garbage can (in the kitchen), no kitchen towels, etc. We made a list and slowly started to check things off.
Gizadeh had told us about a family center in the mall where, although you had to stay there, there were tons of workshops for kids, huge trampoline, play areas, library with plenty of English books, building blocks and so forth. We checked this out on day 3 and became members. It has really been amazing…I can sit and work as the kids play and then we do some school work, then a workshop, then they play, then we eat, and repeat.
There is a restaurant there where we eat a lot and I can sit and drink coffee for hours. The food is amazing. We order the menu of the day and get surprised with yummy food and soup each time. The favorite has been a cold yogurt soup with garbanzo beans and bulger.
Also in that mall is a giant supermarket which has been key to fulfill the appetites of the kids these days. It’s a nice 40 minute walk downhill for us in the morning, but with the bags of groceries and my backpack stuffed with more, we take a taxi home. It’s become our Tuesday & Thursday routine. And it didn’t take long for the kids to find this…
One day we went exploring and headed to the Ogdeon (the music hall on campus) because I had found a concert of Lord of the Rings music and my credit card wasn’t working online…this has become a continual issue that has no pattern. No ticket office there, but we had fun on a little trail we found. The campus is incredibly wooded! Not many trails, but lots of walking by trees and kids can never get enough sticks/nuts/acorns/leaves/etc.
On our walk to the family center, we walk past a walk up window restaurant. We’ve had olive croissants, chocolate rolls and cheese bread. They sell out on the early side, so it’s always a bummer to walk up, look in the case and have all fun breakfast foods gone.
So there seems to be some meter in my head that says what is acceptable to buy and then get rid of, depending on how long I’m going to be in a place. For example, 4 months in Turkey warrants a yoga mat, but not a brand-new bed. Okay, that was an easy one, but Dan and I found ourselves playing this mind game with almost everything we wanted to buy. I did find a used espresso maker from someone in my Bilkent Facebook group, so that was a score! We got some kitchen things, hot pot, spatula, better knifes, big spoon, but stuff for the rest of the house we were just kinda okay with. We did need hangers though. We found ourselves buying food items because we though the jar was a nice shape for storage. The trash can is the box the hot pot came in with a plastic bag inside…works great and shockingly has not been doused by the shower with a kid leaving the door open. But it’s all working well. We have kids art hung up on all the doors, sheets from the geography part of their workbooks on the side of the shelves. It did not take long to have the ’no adults allowed’ sign go up on the kids door, along with a hand drawn map of Hogwarts for reference.
We went bowling with our friends, ate great food at a seafood restaurant, tried meze for the first time and explored around the campus a bit.
Still only found the one playground, but we found that there are hundreds of apple trees with mini apples on them that are in season and delicious!
We bought some succulents that were clearly being mistreated at the grocery store. They were 6 lira each. Current currency conversion is 27lira to 1USD. I almost bought all of them, but stopped at 4 since we were carrying them home in a taxi. And having succulents makes if feel more like home.
Kids’ art and plants do have that affect.
We have a restaurant that is a total of 100 of my steps away from the front door of our apartment building. The first time I went there no one spoke English, so I just ordered the first 4 things on the menu and 2 soups. I knew the word for soup. Turns out I ordered pide and out the family are huge fans! Pretty sure we’ll be going there very often. Pide is a thin break, baked with minimal toppings, served with tomato, lettuce, cucumber, cicik (yogurt sauce with dill), ezme (red pepper salsa) and lemon. You pile all the side on the pide, roll it up and enjoy.
For home meals, not much variety, but it works for us. They usually involve wraps…lettuce, cucumber, yogurt sauce (pros at making it now), pickles, meat, tomatoes and some other sauces we’ve come to like.
And when you run out of stuff, just roll up pomegranate seeds in lettuce and enjoy!
The supermarket has a huge fish section, which the kids drool over each time.
It’s been fun to pick a random fish, bring it home and have Dan cook it. :)
So, 2 weeks in and we are doing okay! Feeling good, not feeling rushed to go see every corner of Turkey (that will come!) and getting into a bit of a routine…but not too much because I really wanted to break out of that this year! I have always wondered what I live would be like without yelling at kids to ‘hurry up’ or ‘get in the car faster, we are going to be late’ and I have a bit of that here so far. No alarms, not that we had them in Arizona really, no rushing to get to school or afterschool activities. If we want to get to the family center, we get there when we want and most days we stop for a pastry on the way. We even saw a hedgehog one day in the woods walking there!
